Many think that half the battle is knowing your enemy. If so, a group of scientists believe that they may be able to eventually defeat the common cold. In April, there was a paper published the about the 100 strains of rhinovirus RNA structures. The RNA is all of the main causes of the most renowned common colds. The areas of the genome that are across most strains were found by Pulmonologist Stephen Liggett and his team, from the University of Maryland. The team said that these targets may be a good target for drugs to be tested on.  Scientists aren’t sure if only certain types of Rhinovirus are responsible for the sparking asthma and intensifying wheezing and such. Liggett explains that there are so many different types of Rhinovirus so just saying that it is just Rhinovirus is very broad. 3,000 are being sequenced by Liggett’s team from a handful of patients at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Information obtained at www.discovermagazine.com. Pictures obtained at www.wadsworth.org and www.wikipedia.org